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Variation-XBA
11-09-2007, 12:28 AM
Again, I did this for work, but thought I'd share here with you guys as well :)

Guitar Hero III Review – Xbox 360

You may have never played any of the Guitar Hero games, but it’s probably s sure bet that you’ve seen or heard of it. The game’s premise is to place you into a guitar shredding rock god, complete with your own guitar to play on! It’s like playing air guitar, but not looking as silly.

The series will by no means teach you how to play a real guitar in any way, but it does replicate some of the feel as you frantically use the fret buttons to win over the crowd you are playing for as they cheer for you.

Guitar Hero III (which will be referred to as GH3 from here on) is now here for us to rock on, but does it hold up against its previous installments now with a new developer behind the mix?

Harmonix, who have made the first two Guitar Heroes are now gone and making the anticipated Rock Band coming out this holiday, so with their absence; Activision (specifically the Tony Hawk guys) have taken over. Many people wondered if they could keep the franchise going as strong, or if something would be lost with the change of hands. The Guitar Hero you have come to know and love is still here and not going anywhere. It may have some new tweaks for better or worse, and some minor flaws, but the core gameplay is still there with a makeover of new graphics and audio choices.

With a new developer also comes a new guitar for users to rock out with. The major change is that it is now wireless as opposed to its wired older sibling. The fret neck is now detachable for ease of storage (though it does seem somewhat unnecessary), the guide button and start/select have been moved for ease of access and now and are also raised slightly higher to make it easier to activate your star power should you not want to raise the guitar upwards to activate it instead. The distance of the wireless capabilities are great, as I was able to go as far as I could in my apartment with no interruptions at all. The only flaw that was very disappointing was the forcing of having to use AA batteries instead of making a slot to hold your Xbox 360 rechargeable battery, though to their defense, even after many hours of use I’ve not had to change batteries yet. It is not necessary to re-buy the guitar in the bundle to enjoy GH3 should you be accustomed to your GH2 guitar, but it is a great new device to use wirelessly.

As notes appear on the screen and you match them with the color coded fret buttons and strum at the same time, you are graded on your performance, accuracy, combo of notes in a row, and how awesome you can rock out. The same formula is used for single player career that as you beating a set number of songs in a track list, then unlocking an encore song before unlocking the next set. Tried and true it does work, though it does feel a bit overused now, but this is where some of the new features kick in to help keep it fresh.

The most notable new feature would have to be the boss battles that you face in a few spots in the game instead of an encore song solely. While it is a welcomed new feature, it feels very flat in substance. You will be shredding off against Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave, and Slash from Guns and Roses/Velvet Revolver in songs they actually recorded for GH3 though battle rules will now apply. Instead of your regular star power, you have combos to complete, and if you hit the last note in the combo, you will be given a powerup attack that can be unleashed against the boss (or opponent when playing Battle Mode online). Attacks can vary from broken strings (where you must rapidity tap the corresponding button to ‘fix’ it), double notes that turn a single note into two and two notes into triples, difficulty up that changes your notes from medium style or hard and hard to expert, and the lefty flip which reverses all the buttons for a short time. On their own the attacks aren’t too devastating as you are able to recover from them pretty quickly, but you are able to store 3 attacks at a time and can unleash them all together or in a row for more damage. The gimmick with boss battles is that you need to defeat them by making them fail by the end of the song, not just survive it like the rest of the game. Out of the game’s eight tiers of songs, there is only 3 bosses and it feels very tacked on and only the final boss is quite difficult (to the point of major frustration). Simply they aren’t really that much fun and there aren’t nearly enough of them. On paper I can see how the idea seems a fantastic new addition, but most battles are ended very quickly to basically whoever can launch their 3 attacks all at once first.

Not really a new ‘feature’, but worth mentioning is the incredible boost to the difficulty. You will soar past the first half of the game and probably even the first two bosses, but then all of a sudden you hit a wall of difficulty that can be outright disheartening to even try and complete it after failing so many times in a row. It’s almost seems as if Activision is catering to the hardcore longtime players as newcomers may be turned off by the sudden boost of challenge. Playing on Expert will have your wrists and arms in agony after a prolonged amount of play, yet it still keeps the ‘one more song’ charm wanting you to keep trying. It seems that a fair amount of the achievements are also geared towards the better players with some making you finish the game while flipped on lefty mode, hosting ranked matches and winning 15 in a row, and even beating a certain amount of songs with a controller (not the guitar!). Even the hardest song in the game that is unlocked once beating the final boss, has its own 3 achievements that seem near impossible to ever get. Some of them just seem odd and stick out as achievements you’ll probably never get without sitting down for a good amount of time trying to learn how to play with a controller. Activision has seemed to decide that some hardcore shredding is more favorable to some slower paced memorable riffs. With some of the last songs to beat like Metallica’s ‘One’ or Slayer’s track, the difficulty is so turned up out of nowhere that non-veterans of the series will probably not even have a clue where to start to combat these songs.
To combat the upped difficulty, a saving grace is that the Hammer-ons and Pull-offs are incredibly easy to actually do properly in GH3. In the previous GH’s, you had to do the Hammer-ons with extreme precision or risk losing your combo, now with GH3 it is much more lenient and pulling off a huge chain combo with just using the buttons is quite the feeling. On top of that, the notes are much brighter and easier to see when you are able to do this, whereas before there was a small white ring around the note and not very noticeable when shredding a fast metal song. Though in quite a few songs where there should be allowances to Hammer on and pull off, it isn’t set that way unfortunately, which also factors into the difficulty. It is also much more forgiving this time around as well when you miss or mess up a note or chord and seems harder to fail songs. It seems to be quite easy to skim by finishing songs with 3 stars, but you will still have to work furiously to gain those elusive 5 star rankings.

With other new additions, there are also some flaws that come with them as well that seem to be a hindrance more than being welcomed. The most noticeable right away is the addition of ingame advertising and product placement. Normally it’s not too big of a deal to have a branded guitar that is from a sponsor or something along those lines, but GH3 turns it way up with you playing a Pontiac set, Axe billboards to even an Axe Guitar buyable from the store with Axe dancers that can accompany you on stage. One other hindrance is some slight frame rate issues. Normally something as small as this can be overlooked as long as it doesn’t stand out, but with a rhythm based game and you generally only looking at one section of the screen, there is no excuse for it in this title. When activating your start power if there is quite a few notes on the screen, you will notice some drops in frames just enough to distract you and most likely make you mess up your combo.

Single player mode hasn’t really changed, but there are some new additions that will seem to prolong the life of this iteration of the series. Being able to play Co-op career is great but the real fun and competition is when you get on Xbox LIVE and challenge friends and oncommers where one person is lead and the other is bass. The fact that every online experience so far on GH3 has been lag free only speaks better about this new feature. For some reason Activision also decided that six or so songs would be co-op only unlockable. So this means that if you don’t have a friend to come play with you you will never get to hear or play these songs in your career mode. While you can play these co-op only songs (Sabotage by Beastie Boys being the most noteworthy) online, it still seems a very odd decision to not make these playable by yourself. Another odd choice included is that the game does not ship with a co-op quick play option, only career mode. While there has already been a patch to remedy this, the people that aren’t online with their Xbox 360 are left out until they complete the game on co-op before they can just jump in for a quick song or two.

Playing online finally is a feature many fans have been asking for now for quite some time. Online you can play Face-off, Pro Face-off, Battle, and Co-op. Again, it makes no sense why you can’t do career Co-op online, but at least your friends can join in whenever. This online component is where the Xbox 360 version really shines through. The 360 version is the easiest to navigate and with the incorporation of friend’s lists, getting a game going with a buddy is quick and painless. The Playstation 3 version has no friend’s list type of matchmaking, so this means you can only play against random people online. With the Wii version being the middle ground, you can play friends, but only with the hassle known as friend codes per game. The Wii version is also not setup for any type of download content that the Xbox 360 and PS3 version will be receiving in the future.

There have been some subtle and dramatic visual changes since Activision has taken over. All the same meters that track your song progress are still there but with a new makeover. Some new small changes would be the note counter that you can keep track of how many in a row you’ve hit, and at certain milestones it will tell you “100 note streak!” which makes you want to concentrate even more on the upcoming notes streaming towards you. Between segments of sets there are now short little cutscenes that eventually play out the well known story of the garage band wanting to make it big. The art style looks exactly like a Gorillaz video (it may even be done by them I think, it’s that similar) and while it’s a new addition to have a ‘story’as to why you’re playing, it’s also completely unnecessary; it simply doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of GH3’s style. The other thing you will notice right away is the makeover of the characters on screen. The main male singer sticks out terribly due to the exaggerated design that look like he’s been stung by a bee in the jaw. The lip syncing in GH3 is spot on though and looks as if he is actually performing the song for you. Even small mouth mannerisms make it look realistic. The singer could have used a little less detail and given it to the backup band members, but in all, it’s a noticeable increase from GH2 and just overall a sharper image.

Obviously with GH3 the main feature is the choice in songs that are included and will obviously favoritism will vary from personal tastes in music but there seems to be a strong mix of classics and ‘awesome’ songs, to downright awful and honestly, quite forgettable ones as well. GH3’s soundtrack vary across many different genres with classic rock tunes such as “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones, Punk tunes like “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols, 90’s rock with some Smashing Pumpkins and even some Pearl Jam, and of course the difficult metal genre being represented by Metallica’s “One”, Slayers’ “Raining Blood” and the hardest song yet to date in the series that is unlocked once you complete the campaign; “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce which this song alone will give you premature arthritis. The biggest plus to the song selections is that more than half are actual master tracks. That’s right, no more terrible covers that stick out (Well, not as many at least) as you rock out to the tune you have come to learn and love. Interestingly, a few bands even re-recorded their songs for GH3 such as the Sex Pistol’s (as a side note, their master track has actually been lost from the studio, hence the reasoning to do so) along with the Boss Battle tunes. Overall the song choices are very high quality, with everyone always having a few songs that they just need to play, it’s just a shame that the majority of the bonus songs are very unknown and simply not that great or fun to even play.

Downloadable songs are a given and will be coming in the future, but as usual, the songs are kept under wrap until launch. Though Activision has confirmed it will be the same pricing scheme forcing a pack of 3 songs for 500 points. Let’s hope the songs will be worth it, though prolonged longevity of a game you’ve invested so much time and money into is never a bad thing and very welcomed.

Normally a game’s website is hardly worth mentioning as it’s usually the same formula of reviews, pictures and videos, but GH3’s has been completely redone and is now your portal to contests, tournaments, finding nearby fellow rockers and much more. You are able to create an Online Band (much like a Guild or Clan) where you can see all your members’ progress and even see how many groupies you’ve attained. This is done by linking your gamertag (another Xbox LIVE perk!) to the websites account that should be easy. As of this writing (and even since launch still) the ability to link your gamertag has not been working. They are aware of the issue and hopefully it will be fixed, as the promise of finding local tournaments, or searching for rockers in your city or town is to promising to not sign up for.

There are some great new additions such as the song list (yes that is a debatable subject) and the amount of master tracks is too big of a deal to not mention again. Online play is what the franchise has been begging for and is also a very welcomed addition. The harder difficulty will ensure that the more experienced rockers will be enjoying it longer, but it’s a two edged sword where it will also potentially scare away newcomers with such a sudden difficulty increase out of nowhere.

Boss Battles and Battle Mode simply isn’t all that fun and don’t end up lasting long enough to really be that enjoyable since it’s really the first to get the powerups is generally the one who wins. The ingame advertising stands out very noticeably and is outright annoying to see plastered everywhere rather than being subtle. The frame rate issues are the major flaw as it has no place in a rhythm game and is more than just a small issue as it can change your outcome of a song, especially in the hard shredding metal songs. Even with these problems, GH3 keeps its charm for the same reason you bought it. You will be hooked for hours, and with endless challengers waiting online for a battle GH3 still makes you feel like a true Guitar Hero, which is what the game sets out to do.

A fantastic online mode and a great website that offers much community involvement (benefit of the doubt is being given here as once it’ll be fully functional soon) really are the high points other than the song selection of course. The major downers are the boring and out of place Boss Battles / Battle Mode, the massive advertising within game and the frame rate issues being the only true hindrances, but they do carry a large weight to them due to their simultaneous importance and annoyance.

Fret not (get it?) as if you are a Guitar Hero fan this one is not to be missed, and should you be a newcomer to the series, splurge and get the wireless guitar bundle and rock out like a true Guitar Hero!

Final Ranking: 8/10.

Kamshaft
11-09-2007, 07:46 AM
Post this in the review system, not where, you may win a prize!

Nato King
11-09-2007, 08:22 AM
A very nice Review man. But like Kamshaft-XBA said the review system is the best place for a review this good.

Here is a link for that game.http://www.xboxaddict.com/product_profile/1466.html

Variation-XBA
11-09-2007, 12:06 PM
Posted, didn't know where to find the review section :)

Edit: Posted all my reviews I've done since launch too :)

Kamshaft
11-09-2007, 12:41 PM
Posted, didn't know where to find the review section :)

Not to be rude, but you didn't see the EXTRA large "Write a Review" button? I guess you were just amazed from the new site launch thing... we forgive you! :D

Variation-XBA
11-09-2007, 12:53 PM
Not to be rude, but you didn't see the EXTRA large "Write a Review" button? I guess you were just amazed from the new site launch thing... we forgive you! :D

Actually no, cause I didn't do a game search before, and the front is so cluttered I didn't know where to start :(

Now I know though :cheers: